Muslims held fast in power of imams

The evidence for that antipathy is thin. After all, isn't this the same West that intervened to help Muslims in Kosovo, despite powerful voices of opposition on both the political left and right - and is haunted by its failure to do the same thing in Bosnia? Weren't British Muslims joined by many more non-Muslims in opposition to war in Iraq?

And in the period that covers the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq - part of the supposed war against Muslims - there has been a significant increase in Muslim representation in British public life and several long-standing Muslim policy objectives have been achieved. After the bombs, the politics of grievance must surely be subject to more critical scrutiny.

One of the obstacles here is the lack of true dialogue in Muslim communities. I sometimes used to go to a local Koranic study circle. More recently I sat in on a Bible study group a friend of mine attends. Both meetings were similar in many ways. They were both held around kitchen tables, many cups of tea were drunk, and they were led by men with beards.

But when I think back on them, there was one striking contrast. Whereas everyone got a chance to speak during the Bible group, the Koranic circle was dominated by the leader, the imam of the local mosque. He was a knowledgeable man and spoke well, but I remember noticing that he didn't ask the other members of the group any questions. The purpose of the meeting was not to figure out the meaning and significance of the text we were reading together, but to learn it from the imam.

That remains the dynamic among Muslim congregations. While many Muslims in this country can recite Koranic Arabic, and children frequently attend classes after school, only a tiny proportion understand the language. Imams are not just the leaders of the congregation, they are the only interpreters of religious doctrine. In this sense, Islam is yet to have its 'Protestant moment'. People have not taken it upon themselves to learn about and reflect on the faith, and to do so from independent, non-institutional sources in their vernacular language.

In addition, Muslim communities in Britain - especially those of south Asian origin - still adhere to many of the values of the villages and small towns from which people first came here. These are places in which the mosque is the hub of social power - paid for by the local landowners, run according to their wishes - and the imam is a social and political, as well as religious figurehead. It is a position that, for example, Church of England ministers can nowadays only look on with envy.

This isn't to say that there aren't other voices in the Muslim diaspora. There are liberals, both among Islamic scholars and, increasingly, among the British commentariat. But these people don't have hold of pulpits as imams do. While Islam does not have a rigid, church-like hierarchy which may actively suppress other views, alternative opinion finds it hard to exert traction since the main mode of transmission about faith and doctrine in Muslim communities remains oral. The problem for reformers is that they write, and usually for 'western' publications. As long as the politics of grievance remains dominant in Muslim communities, splitting the world into Muslims and the West, these voices will not be heard.

As a consequence, imams and the religious organisations that bind together groups of mosques across different cities have an enormous amount of control over the Muslim community's agenda. Many of these imams were born and brought up outside Britain and their English is often poor. They have very little engagement with British culture and society. I am not blaming these imams for the difficulties faced by Muslim communities, but their position means they are uniquely able to influence the debate on how to solve them.

One major reason for the continuing salience of the politics of grievance is that imams and the religious organisations have more reason than most to exploit it. There are genuine reasons why Muslims in Britain feel excluded and disadvantaged, but imams and these organisations have fostered those feelings rather than tried to find ways to overcome them. Prior to Friday prayers, it is much easier to bind your congregation together with a sermon arguing that all these grievances come from the West's war against Muslims, rather than to challenge this with a more sophisticated critique.

Now that many key figures in the community have realised the need for more constructive political engagement, what can be done to generate it? I believe the community must act now to create forums to address its problems honestly. And it must do so before government fills the vacuum with further legislation. It is much better, for example, that religious organisations take the lead in recruiting more British-born and educated imams rather than that government forces their hand by banning imams from abroad.

These efforts must also be coordinated, drawing on the widest possible range of British Muslim experience and expertise. The government-sponsored taskforce on extremism can be a starting point. However, Muslim communities face a combination of problems and there is an opportunity for a commission with a much broader focus. The commission would need to draw on the established leaders of the community, but also involve younger figures, grassroots activists, prominent Muslims from the fields of law, politics and culture, and also the voices which don't get heard in mosques but represent important trends of opinion - I mean those people who want explicitly to reform understandings of the faith, or who may only be 'culturally' Muslim.

Perhaps most importantly, the commission would need to engage the communities themselves. Passive congregations in thrall to their local imam won't fix the problems of social exclusion and extremism. The commission would need to seek out the views of the communities and then provide them with a spur to action. Where for so long there has only been a one-way conversation, a high-profile commission could engage the community, transform the feelings of shame that have built since 7/7, begin to break the siege mentality and provide hope and a sense of momentum.

• Kamran Nazeer is working with others to establish this commission. To find out more, e-mail [email protected]. This article was first published in the August issue of Prospect magazine (www.prospect-magazine.co.uk)